title: Biosignal-based relaxation evaluation of head-care robot.
abstract: Such popular head care procedures as shampooing and scalp massages provide physical and mental relaxation. However, they place a big burden such as chapped hands on beauticians and other practitioners. Based on our robot hand technology, we have been developing a head care robot. In this paper, we quantitatively evaluated its relaxation effect using the following biosignals: accelerated plethymography (SDNN, HF/TP, LF/HF), heart rate (HR), blood pressure, salivary amylase (sAA) and peripheral skin temperature (PST). We compared the relaxation of our developed head care robot with the head care provided by nurses. In our experimental result with 54 subjects, the activity of the autonomic nerve system changed before and after head care procedures performed by both a human nurse and our proposed robot. Especially, in the proposed robot, we confirmed significant differences with the procedure performed by our proposed head care robot in five indexes: HF/TP, LF/HF, HR, sAA, and PST. The activity of the sympathetic nerve system decreased, because the values of its indexes significantly decreased: LF/HF, HR, and sAA. On the other hand, the activity of the parasympathetic nerve system increased, because of the increase of its indexes value: HF/TP and PST. Our developed head care robot provided satisfactory relaxation in just five minutes of use.
authors.forename: Takeshi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ando
authors.forename: Maki
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: Tomomi
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Maruyama
authors.forename: Yuto
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Susuki
authors.forename: Toshinori
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hirose
authors.forename: Soichiro
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Fujioka
authors.forename: Osamu
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Mizuno
authors.forename: Kenji
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamada
authors.forename: Yuko
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Ohno
authors.forename: Honda
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yukio
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000681:Amylases / Q000378:metabolism; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006257:Head; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008405:Massage / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D010991:Plethysmography / Q000379:methods; D012371:Robotics / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D012471:Salivary Proteins and Peptides / Q000378:metabolism; D012881:Skin Temperature / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D012471:Salivary Proteins and Peptides; D000681:Amylases